It hasn’t even taken a full year for the effects of a caustic Georgia voting rights law to start to impact voters—and one in particular has a larger following than many. Journalist Rickey Bevington, who anchors NPR's All Things Considered on Georgia Public Broadcasting, wrote a since-deleted tweet about her experience attempting to vote on Tuesday, the day many Atlanta voters were tasked with voting for a new mayor. "Today I'm experiencing Georgia's new voting restrictions,” she tweeted. “I accidentally went to the wrong voting precinct. I'm barred from casting a provisional ballot before 5pm. Since I work until 7pm, I must go to the precinct now or my vote won't count. Grateful to have time & a car"
State Rep. Bee Nguyen retweeted Bevington’s post and added her own observations in Georgia. “I was a poll monitor in Fulton County last year during the Presidential election,” Nguyen tweeted. “Over half of the voters at my precinct were at the wrong precinct but right county. They were able to vote provisionally. No longer the case with SB202. Yes, this is voter suppression.”
SB202, which is now law, started as a two-page proposal to make sure eligible voters didn’t repeatedly receive absentee ballot applications, but it was expanded into a nearly 100-page legislative document on March 17 and passed by the Republican-controlled Georgia Legislature the next week. Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp wasted no time signing the bill into law, and he oddly did so in the name of making elections secure even though he had earlier parted ways with former President Donald Trump to ensure voters that Georgia elections are in fact, secure. "With Senate Bill 202, Georgia will take another step toward ensuring our elections are secure, accessible and fair," Kemp told reporters during a news conference on March 25. Responding to Trump’s claim that Kemp had “done nothing” and that the reality TV star was ashamed to have endorsed the Georgia Republican, Kemp said in an earlier statement Channel 2 Action News obtained:
“Georgia law prohibits the Governor from interfering in elections. The Secretary of State, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order. As the Governor has said repeatedly, he will continue to follow the law and encourage the Secretary of State to take reasonable steps - including a sample audit of signatures - to restore trust and address serious issues that have been raised.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who Trump directed to "find" enough votes to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden, has repeatedly assured voters there was no widespread voter fraud in the state. Raffensperger attributed Trump’s claim of a rigged election to a bruised ego in the election official’s recently released book Integrity Counts. “You believe in your heart that you did a good job, and if you never lack self doubt, it must be doubly debilitating — and confusing. Instead of accepting defeat, you look for scapegoats, shift blame, or seek alternative theories,” Raffensperger wrote.
But while discrediting Trump, Raffensperger too was somehow able to justify SB202. In a statement following a judge's decision to unseal absentee ballots in Fulton County, he said that the law will lead to “increased opportunities for voters to get assurance that county vote tabulation was done correctly while giving the state more tools to address Fulton County mismanagement.”
“From day one I have encouraged Georgians with legitimate concerns about the election in their counties to pursue those claims through legal avenues,” Raffensperger said. “Fulton County has a longstanding history of election mismanagement that has understandably weakened voters’ faith in its system. Allowing this audit provides another layer of transparency and citizen engagement.”
That’s just not true. The Democratic Party of Georgia said in a statement that GOP lawmakers “hijacked the two-page bill at the last minute, turning it into a 93-page voter suppression omnibus bill and rushing it through committee before allowing full public scrutiny.” “The GOP just won’t stop when it comes to making it harder for Georgians to vote,” the state party added in its statement. “Senate Bill 202 contains the worst of their party’s racist voter suppression tactics, such as restricting absentee voting, making runoffs nearly impossible to implement, and allowing partisan actors to take control of elections. This bill is not about election integrity—it’s simply another GOP push to revive Jim Crow and turn our elections into a disaster in order to suppress votes.”
RELATED: Georgia GOP 'hijacked' bill with nearly 100 pages of voting restrictions, and now it's law
State Rep. Bee Nguyen retweeted Bevington’s post and added her own observations in Georgia. “I was a poll monitor in Fulton County last year during the Presidential election,” Nguyen tweeted. “Over half of the voters at my precinct were at the wrong precinct but right county. They were able to vote provisionally. No longer the case with SB202. Yes, this is voter suppression.”
SB202, which is now law, started as a two-page proposal to make sure eligible voters didn’t repeatedly receive absentee ballot applications, but it was expanded into a nearly 100-page legislative document on March 17 and passed by the Republican-controlled Georgia Legislature the next week. Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp wasted no time signing the bill into law, and he oddly did so in the name of making elections secure even though he had earlier parted ways with former President Donald Trump to ensure voters that Georgia elections are in fact, secure. "With Senate Bill 202, Georgia will take another step toward ensuring our elections are secure, accessible and fair," Kemp told reporters during a news conference on March 25. Responding to Trump’s claim that Kemp had “done nothing” and that the reality TV star was ashamed to have endorsed the Georgia Republican, Kemp said in an earlier statement Channel 2 Action News obtained:
“Georgia law prohibits the Governor from interfering in elections. The Secretary of State, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order. As the Governor has said repeatedly, he will continue to follow the law and encourage the Secretary of State to take reasonable steps - including a sample audit of signatures - to restore trust and address serious issues that have been raised.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who Trump directed to "find" enough votes to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden, has repeatedly assured voters there was no widespread voter fraud in the state. Raffensperger attributed Trump’s claim of a rigged election to a bruised ego in the election official’s recently released book Integrity Counts. “You believe in your heart that you did a good job, and if you never lack self doubt, it must be doubly debilitating — and confusing. Instead of accepting defeat, you look for scapegoats, shift blame, or seek alternative theories,” Raffensperger wrote.
But while discrediting Trump, Raffensperger too was somehow able to justify SB202. In a statement following a judge's decision to unseal absentee ballots in Fulton County, he said that the law will lead to “increased opportunities for voters to get assurance that county vote tabulation was done correctly while giving the state more tools to address Fulton County mismanagement.”
“From day one I have encouraged Georgians with legitimate concerns about the election in their counties to pursue those claims through legal avenues,” Raffensperger said. “Fulton County has a longstanding history of election mismanagement that has understandably weakened voters’ faith in its system. Allowing this audit provides another layer of transparency and citizen engagement.”
That’s just not true. The Democratic Party of Georgia said in a statement that GOP lawmakers “hijacked the two-page bill at the last minute, turning it into a 93-page voter suppression omnibus bill and rushing it through committee before allowing full public scrutiny.” “The GOP just won’t stop when it comes to making it harder for Georgians to vote,” the state party added in its statement. “Senate Bill 202 contains the worst of their party’s racist voter suppression tactics, such as restricting absentee voting, making runoffs nearly impossible to implement, and allowing partisan actors to take control of elections. This bill is not about election integrity—it’s simply another GOP push to revive Jim Crow and turn our elections into a disaster in order to suppress votes.”
RELATED: Georgia GOP 'hijacked' bill with nearly 100 pages of voting restrictions, and now it's law